Romahapa School

1 Context

Children's learning is well supported by a strong focus on positive and caring relationships and an inclusive culture. The school has a growing roll. Many children travel to the school by bus, including from Balclutha. The school has refurbished and extended some areas to respond flexibly to pressure on learning spaces caused by the increasing number of children.

Children and families enjoy the focus the school places on sporting and other outdoor activities. Children benefit from the opportunity to join with children from other local schools for sporting, cultural and educational activities.

The school has an experienced principal. Recent changes in teaching staff have been well managed to ensure continuity and make good use of complementary teaching strengths. The teaching team is supported by an experienced teacher-aide.

The principal and teachers collaborate professionally with staff from other schools. Many of these schools are part of the South Otago Community of Learning.

2 Equity and excellence

The school's vision for learners is that they will be prepared for life, function well as lifelong learners and be equipped with the necessary skills to contribute effectively to society. The school's stated values are:

• family-like relationships
• meeting the needs of each child
• developing children's social skills and positive self esteem
• high expectations for success in learning with an emphasis on literacy and numeracy
• community support and involvement.

The school’s achievement information shows that in the past three years most students have achieved at National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. This school has consistently met the government target for at least 85% of students to meet the standards in reading and mathematics. Achievement in writing has been at similar levels since 2014, as a result of a school-wide focus on raising achievement. Teachers collect a variety of achievement information and discuss as a team how to determine the accuracy of their overall assessment decisions.

Since the last ERO evaluation, the school has undertaken school-wide professional learning about effective teaching and learning in writing and mathematics. This has included reviewing and developing teachers' assessment practices.

The school has had a significant focus on integrating digital technology into teaching and learning practices.

This has involved:

• promoting the use of individual digital devices for all learners in Years 3 to 8 and supporting families to acquire these
• the development of the school's own online learning environment to better support students' self-directed learning at school and at home
• development of teacher capabilities to deliver e-learning experiences.

A next step is for the school to update its strategic plan, curriculum and assessment guidelines to reflect these new practices.

3 Accelerating achievement

How effectively does this school respond to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration?

The school responds effectively to children whose learning and achievement need acceleration.

Teachers know children very well as individuals and learners. Children spend up to three years with the same teacher. Children value the way their classroom teacher and other staff know about their interests and strengths and use this knowledge to personalise their learning.

Teachers use learning information well to:

• identify children who need additional support to accelerate their progress
• identify what children can do and what their individual learning needs are
• plan teaching approaches and programmes to respond to children's needs
• monitor and reflect on what is working for each child.

All learners at risk of not achieving at National Standards benefit from carefully planned learning programmes and interventions. The principal, teachers and teacher-aide work closely together to plan and coordinate a well-balanced combination of learning support, including explicit in-class teaching, targeted one-to-one and small-group support and work with external specialists.

Emerging e-learning practices are:

• extending opportunities for learning within and beyond the classroom
• providing flexible and engaging ways for children to demonstrate what they know and can do
• enabling children to determine the pace and level of challenge for their learning and to get timely feedback about their progress and achievement.

The school provides a range of education-outside-the-classroom (EOTC) experiences. These help to accelerate children's learning and achievement by:

• providing rich, authentic contexts for learning
• providing the opportunity to develop and demonstrate the skills and attitudes of a confident and independent learner
• promoting a range of social skills including collaboration, problem-solving and leadership.

A significant number of parents and families participate in the school's EOTC activities. This means that children of all ages in the school participate alongside parents, pre-schoolers, teachers and trustees in learner-centred relationships that demonstrate the school's vision for learning.

4 School conditions

How effectively do the school’s curriculum and other organisational processes and practices develop and enact the school’s vision, values, goals and priorities for equity and excellence?

The school's curriculum-in-action, including the quality of teaching and learning practices, effectively develops and enacts the school's vision, values, goals and priorities for equity and excellence. Some other organisational processes and practices need to be strengthened to be more effective.

The school's curriculum effectively supports children's learning by placing a high priority on reading, writing and mathematics. Children are supported to know about what they are learning and what they need to do to improve. They are actively engaged in their learning as a result of increasing opportunities to make choices about what and how they learn.

The board of trustees is committed to ensuring that all children have equitable opportunity to experience EOTC and the wider curriculum. This includes second-language learning (Mandarin) for the whole school. The experienced chairperson and the trustees actively encourage community involvement in the school. Families are welcome to, and do, attend board meetings and take part in discussions about what is important for children's learning. The board supports teachers to participate purposefully in professional learning that is well linked to the school's goals for improving children's learning and the integration of digital technologies.

The principal encourages professional collaboration and makes good use of internal and external expertise to make improvements to teaching and learning. He effectively promotes and supports the wellbeing of children to benefit their learning.

In order to more effectively promote equity and excellence for all children at risk of poor educational outcomes, the school needs to address the following next steps.

The board needs to ensure that:

• priorities for improvement are clearly evident in the school's long and short-term planning
• progress toward achieving planned goals and targets is regularly monitored and evaluated
• reports to the board on student achievement and progress are regular, evaluative and useful
• evaluation of each area of the curriculum assures trustees of the quality of provision for children
• the outcomes and key points from evaluative discussions are suitably recorded.

The principal needs to strengthen his focus on effective professional leadership by developing:

• comprehensive guidelines for the curriculum that match current best practice
• shared, agreed understandings about best teaching practice for the use of digital technologies and bicultural teaching and learning
• guidelines for evaluation of all aspects of teaching and learning that help answer the questions 'how well have these aspects been implemented?' and 'what has been the impact on children's learning?'
• improved analysis, interpretation and reporting of student progress and achievement information to the board
• guidelines for teaching as inquiry and staff appraisal, which support teachers to focus on continuous improvement.

5 Going forward

How well placed is the school to achieve and sustain equitable and excellent outcomes for all children?

Leaders and teachers:

• know the children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated
• respond to the strengths, needs and interests of each child
• regularly evaluate how teaching is working for these children
• do not always or systematically act on what they know works for each child
• have a plan in place but have not yet built teacher capability effectively to achieve equitable outcomes for all children.

Teachers know each child that needs to have his/her learning and achievement accelerated, and plan and implement programmes to bring about this acceleration. Teachers work collaboratively to reflect on what is working, build their capability and support each other for continuous improvement. This knowledge is yet to be gathered, analysed and reported evaluatively by the principal to the board to build system-wide capability to accelerate the progress of each at-risk child.

Action:

The board, principal and teachers should use the findings of this evaluation, the Effective School Evaluation resource, the Internal Evaluation: Good Practice exemplars and the School Evaluation Indicators to develop a Raising Achievement Plan to further develop processes and practices that respond effectively to the strengths and needs of children whose learning and achievement need to be accelerated.

As part of this review, ERO will continue to monitor the school’s Raising Achievement Plan and the progress the school makes. ERO is likely to carry out the next full review in three years.

6 Board assurance on legal requirements

Before the review the board of trustees and principal of the school completed the ERO board assurance statement and Self Audit Checklists. In these documents they attested that they had taken all reasonable steps to meet their legislative obligations related to the following:

• Board administration

• Curriculum

• Management of health, safety and welfare

• Personnel management

• Asset management. 

During the review, ERO checked the following items because they have a potentially high impact on student safety and wellbeing:

• Emotional safety of students (including prevention of bullying and sexual harassment)

• Physical safety of students

• Teacher registration

• Processes for appointing staff

• Stand down, suspensions, expulsions and exclusions

• Attendance

• Compliance with the provisions of the Vulnerable Children Act 2014

In order to improve current practice, the board should:

• develop and follow suitable guidelines for internal evaluation of all aspects of school operations to assure trustees that appropriate policies and procedures are in place and being followed
  [NAG 2b]
• strengthen their guidelines and processes for principal appraisal
  [S77C State Sector Act 1988 and Education Council July 2015]
• make appropriate use of public excluded provisions for the board to discuss relevant topics and record outcomes of the discussion
  [Part VII Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987]
• work with the principal to ensure timely responsiveness to changes in legal requirements
  [NAG 5c]
• urgently review and update relevant policies and procedures in response to the Vulnerable Children's Act 2014
• ensure it gets regular assurance reports that personnel procedures are in place and compliance requirements are met.
  [NAG 3; s 77A State Sector Act]

7 Recommendation

The board of trustees and principal need to develop an action plan to respond to the next steps in this evaluation that have to do with professional leadership and effective governance. The board would benefit from working with the New Zealand School Trustees Association to build its governance knowledge and capability.

Lesley Patterson

Deputy Chief Review Officer Southern

30 June 2016

About the school